It's been three days since I arrived in London and two days since I've come to Oxford; I'm clearly not going to be very good at keeping this blog up. But something exciting enough happened to me earlier this evening that encouraged me to finally post on this damn thing, so hooray! More on that later though.

My flight into London got in on schedule, but we were prevented from leaving the plane for about two and a half hours until the parking strip or whatever was de-iced. In the course of those 2.5 hours, I discovered that the nice lady sitting next to me on the plane was a long-lost aunt. We talked for two hours and marvelled about fate. Then she was amazingly generous enough to offer me a taxi to the hotel in Victoria that I was destined to go. I didn't have to take the coach or brave the scary underground or anything. Or pay for anything. I love my long-lost aunt.

So I got to Victoria almost 5 minutes after Ellen did. This part was where I was convinced that I was going to die. Actually, there were a lot of moments in London and Oxford where I thought I was going to die - more on that later. But the hotel in Victoria (the Jubilee B&B) nearly killed me. Our room was on the fourth floor, meaning there were 5 flights of stairs. Very narrow, very steep, very fucking impossible to climb with my luggage. I got to the top, gasping my lungs out, only to find Ellen doing the same. Once we both managed to breathe in we greeted, jumped around in excitement, then set out to explore London. By the way, it was snowing when I stepped out of Heathrow. It was glorious. But why the fuck was it snowing in April?

We went to a lot of places, and I barely remember them now because I'm still very disoriented. We walked through St. James' Park, saw some hideously fat birds, walked past Big Ben and Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, strolled by the Thames, all the while taking many pictures. At South Bank we encountered a were-rabbit, or some form of zombie animal, standing as straight as he could, waiting for tourists to shuffle near enough for a picture (which we took of course). After enough sightseeing we walked back to Victoria, but not before seeing what we thought were the Japanese olympic team in buses, escorted by an infinite number of police cars. I don't know whether it was the Japanese olympic team; but there was a bus full of tracksuit-clad Asian men who were waving imperiously, and an English man said they were Japanese, so we believed him. Anyway, we later realised that the protests were taking place.

So we walked back to Victoria as we concluded that we were close to death due to the cold - we had to stop in a hearty-looking pub to fill our bellies with fish and chips. In the pub was a drunken group, among which a drunken man cheerfully greeted us as we waited for our food (though not to accost us, he was trying to alert us to the waiter who was standing behind us with our long-awaited food). The same drunken man later ran out of the pub and started chasing a bus, kind of like a dog running after a car. It was a bizarre sight.

The next morning I woke up with a tremendous stomach ache. I ran to the bathroom but found that our poor supply of toilet paper had already run out! I got back into bed and could barely move, so I just moaned uselessly for about 10 minutes. I'm pretty sure it was the pub food we'd had the night before, because Ellen had also had an upset stomach during the night. I phoned reception and the man kindly ran up (our 5 flights of stairs) with spare toilet paper. Hooray! After a few trips all was well again.

We had breakfast and went out again to check out Harrod's in Knightsbridge. This was my first time using the underground, and so I made a lot of stupid mistakes like not standing on the right (or left, I've already forgotten which) on the escalator, and, um... maybe that was my only mistake, but I felt very out-of-place among the very serious-looking Brits taking the subway. By the way, they queue up for everything. While we were waiting for the next train, there were three organised rows of people queuing up. They looked like patient birds. I laughed the whole time I was underground.

So Harrod's was fun, and then we trekked back to the Victoria area to check out the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. That didn't really happen, because there was a HUGE crowd of people glued to the gates, so we couldn't see anything. After a few failed pictures of the tops of the guards' furry hats, we left so that we could take the bus (or coach, as they call them here) to Oxford.

Our arrival at 65 High St was pretty nondescript, as we were taken straight to the seminar room so that we could attend an orientation meeting. Before we could even take our luggage up. Fun. After the meeting, we were shown to our room (fat suitcases in hand), which we instantly fell in love with. It's not huge like the other rooms, but it has a lovely fire escape door (which we figured we'd open the to let some sunlight in during the warmer days... now, that doesn't seem like a very good idea), and mirrors on the desks, and bright but stalkery windows (basically all the rooms on the inside perimeter of the house can see us), and a lovely bathroom that's only shared by two rooms.. Oh yeah, we're in "the tower", which is only accessible to our room and the one above us, so it's very quiet and easy to sleep in. We figured we'd just have to tell everyone where our room is so they could visit us, cos no one else knows where the fuck it is.

The rest of the house is batshit insane, consisting of 6 houses mashed together with the walls knocked out. So there are a total of fifty something stair cases, with most of the rooms in little dark corners that are impossible to find. For a while I couldn't locate facilities such as the computer cluster and the administrators, and I would have liked to do laundry today but I've already forgotten where the laundry room is (and don't want to traipse up 50 staircases with my laundry bag). So yes, our house is fucking crazy, if not endearing.

Earlier this evening (this is the Exciting Event I mentioned at the beginning), I was looking for someone's room but got hopelessly lost and ended up in the Very Secret piano room, which seems to be in its own part of the house that no one knows about. I shut the door, not wanting to disturb anyone with my noise, and played for ten minutes before I got bored. Tried to leave, but the door fucking locked. Just like that. I tried my key, hoping it would work, but of course no luck. I banged on the windows, hoping someone who lived next door would hear me, but of course no one lived next to the fucking piano room. I tried the windows but they would only open up a few inches because of a screwed-in wooden block that kept the frames from moving up. I banged on the windows for five minutes but still no luck. I got scared thinking that, if I were trapped in here, I would miss the flight to Dublin that was leaving early next morning, and I'd be stuck in the damn room with no food and water for three days. Death. So the banging and window unscrewing went on for another 20 or so minutes before I thought I'd try my key again. And, miraculously, the door just opened the second I put my key in (barely having turned it). Just opened like that on its own, creaking ominously. I swear this house is haunted now. It will be a while before I go back to the secret piano room.

So, Oxford. My impressions? I love having excellent shopping and dining right out my doorstep - the city is very well integrated with the "campus" and it's fantastic. The weather really blows though. It is damn cold, and since it's April I'm quite bitter - even more so when I think of all the thin summer t-shirts and sandals I've brought with me. And the fact that I've lost my umbrella. Everything's expensive of course, and I've been living off bananas and granola bars and thus not feeding myself adequately - that'll need to change so I don't collapse again. The streets are scary because there are few crossings so people tend to jaywalk, and every time I see the looming red tour bus I freeze up and can't cross the road. But overall Oxford's pretty fantastic and I'm happy. Plus there are loads of Indian restaurants. What more can I ask for?

Okay, I'm waking up in two and a half hours for our Bing trip to Dublin. Fuck trying to keep a faithful account of everything. Must sleep. Oh yeah, I've been placed in Brasenose. The people are supposedly very friendly. I like friendly people, so seems like a good match to me.